The first squirrel I really knew was “Charlie.” Charlie hung around my grandfather’s house on Boyd St. in the village of Montgomery, NY. He was a big grey with a distinctive chopped off tip of his tail who let us feed him peanuts from our hands. Gramp had trained him to cautiously grab the nut, then sit back on his haunches, crack the shell and chew it up as we kids watched with delight. Charlie was a hoot. Over the years I’ve shot and eaten plenty of squirrels, but Charlie was the only one I ever actually had a relationship with.
The eastern grey squirrel (which can also come in white and black) is native to North America. It’s smart and easily adapts to urban areas and dense human habitation. When I lived on E. 6th St. and Ave. A in the East Village (before they tore down Ben’s Babyland) I had squirrels everywhere, knocking on my window and jumping from tree to tree. If I didn’t remember to put the screen in they’d come right in the bedroom. Once a rather large, bold one almost crawled in bed with me. It took me a second before I realized his bald tail was not a species anomaly. I don’t miss city living.
In the Catskills squirrels are everywhere. When I had a big oak tree shading my house the early fall was a time of war between me and the squirrel population. The acorns shaken loose from the hungry critters hit my roof like machine gun fire, sending me into a frenzy. I couldn’t get any sleep after the crack of dawn. In order to preserve my sanity I pulled out the 20 ga. The freezer filled up with their little bodies. One early fall day of especially frenetic activity found me blasting away as the neighbors took the last warm day of the year to let the kids splash in the pool. Maybe you can see what’s coming, but neither I nor the squirrel had any idea.
The furry bastard was in the very top of the tree. I missed him on the first shot. Chambering another round I swung and firing a second time, cut the branch in two with the #7 birdshot. He didn’t have a scratch on him as he hit the ground, gave me the finger, and disappeared into the undergrowth. Five minutes later there was a loud knock on my door. The neighbors (who I was already feuding with) had seen the birdshot raining down around their kids swimming in the pool. Luckily nobody was hit. Of course I denied everything. Why they didn’t have me arrested is still a mystery.
The oak tree is gone now and my war with the local squirrel population is over. I don’t shoot squirrels anymore and enjoy watching them play in the woods. But I can only speak for myself. Last night Cheeky took his usual midnight stroll as I tried to sleep. He has a bad habit of coming and going out my bedroom window at all hours. Around 1:00 am I heard a faint meow and a knock at the window. Half asleep I automatically cranked open the window and let him vault in. That’s usually the end of it and he crawls up in my beard and goes to sleep. But last night the meowing continued. It was strangely muffled. Finally I turned on the light to find the cat crouched on the floor, a ball of grey and white fluff stuffed in his mouth. I didn’t have my glasses on. As I stumbled to Cheeky’s prize the first thing I wanted to determine was if the creature was actually dead. It was. He dropped it at my feet and looked up at me for approval. What the hell? Laying there at the top of the loft ladder was the cutest, big eyed, flying squirrel I’d ever seen.
Now you may think that flying squirrels are benign and I would be disappointed in Cheeky for killing one of nature’s marvels. You’d be wrong. Flying squirrels may be cute, but they are the most destructive and annoying of all types of squirrels. I once had a family of them living in my roof rafters. Unlike grey squirrels, they are nocturnal. So when you want to sleep they are coming and going, slamming doors, opening bags of chips and partying ‘til all hours. I tried to kill many and never got one. You try hitting a flying squirrel, bleary eyed, waving a shotgun in the middle of the night. I love living in the Catskills. I don’t condone Cheeky hurdling across my head with a bloody, dead rodent in his mouth, but what could I say? I’m proud of my little squirrel hunter. How the hell does a cat ever catch one? Top of the food chain baby! In the end it’s us or the squirrels. I’ll bet on cats any day.
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